


Orbiting the gay

by ThePiningTrees



Series: Five feet apart (because they’re Jedi gay) [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Banter, Bisexual Male Character, Din’s dick says hello, Enemies to Lovers, First part of a longer fic, Force-Sensitive Cobb Vanth, Force-Sensitive Din Djarin, Haar’chak means holy fuck now, High Republic, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Internalized Homophobia, Kink tags to be added, Light of the Jedi, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of blow jobs, Porn With Plot, Rescue Missions, Stripping, War, but also dark, but hella gay, it got dark, mentions of sex as business transaction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:14:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePiningTrees/pseuds/ThePiningTrees
Summary: Set in the time period when the Old Republic was a democratic union comprising thousands of star systems, the Outer Rim territories are mostly uncharted, colonized recently or not at all. The Jedi Order is an appreciated cooperative partner to the Republic and loved by most. This story takes place sometime during the High Republic Era, an age of unprecedented peace, comparably. The Jedi are no longer at war with the Mandalorians, but that’s not to say Din Djarin, a force-sensitive Mandalorian, is feeling the love. Put it simply, he doesn’t fit in anywhere and he’s learned to accept the fact. He doesn’t need the approval stamp of the Jedi—he works best alone.Not until he is sent to the Outer Rim territories and rescues the Freedom Fighter Cobb Vanth does Din start to feel amicable towards another force-sensitive person, although the person in question does make it hard (pun intended) to like him.Meanwhile, Cobb’s internalized homophobia coupled with his deepseated hatred for the Jedi is so deep it used to be an ocean.What Din and him are doing is just bros letting off steam, right? Right?!Alternative title: The Light of the Jedi: the Denial edition.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth, Din Djarin/Din Djarin
Series: Five feet apart (because they’re Jedi gay) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2175627
Comments: 30
Kudos: 27





	1. Pre-mission ritual

**Author's Note:**

> Uhm, oops? 😳

Independent contractor Din Djarin adjusted the destination coordinates to a downwards orbiting trajectory as he neared the remote planet with no official name (the Senate hadn’t reached a decision but was leaning towards Avar-Kriss, as a tribute to one of the most distinguished Jedi masters and folk heroes). The radar remained dormant and as he reached out through the Force he marveled at the response he was getting: the Light was smooth as new transparisteel in a wide circumference around his ship—not a single irregularity to signal close-by threats. He was alone up here, for now, and allowed a rare moment of reprieve. 

Din had left hyperspace seven days ago due to the peculiar instability of the star system he traversed. It was mostly uncharted by the Galactic Republic and caution was highly advisable. It wasn’t just the impracticality of flying blind—that was kind of a thrill, but the increased risk of bumping into the the enemies of the Republic. Smugglers, crime syndicates, marauders, petty thieves. Assholes in general. 

The Galactic constitution hadn’t reached these parts, known by the higher societal classes near the core as the Outer Rim. He found it a bit egocentric but he understood their logic: what was furthest from their own center of civilization would be the murky territory in the periphery, and ‘the Outer Rim’ had an adventurous ring to it. Holo novels were in the first stage of being published and read by an equal number of school children and prospectors looking to carve out their own little piece of property in existence. Many of them were settlers of the hard-working, economically vulnerable and desperate variety. Unfortunately there were plenty of questionable types drawn to the lawless space as well. 

Din was an anomaly in the mix or, as fellow pilot Greef Karga put it, a damn fool for patrolling the space that most military and Jedi pilots avoided like the plague. 

But Din was neither military nor Jedi, not in heart nor in the formal listings. True, his connection to the Force was comparable to the Jedi and he would’ve made Jedi master twice by now, had he joined the order. It was the best decision he ever made when he declined: he was Mandalorian, he knew his allegiance and his history and as a true Mandalorian he valued his independence. He was frequently contracted by the Republic military for missions such as the one he was currently carrying out, and paid handsomely, enough to not have to look for work elsewhere, but without the restrictions: he was free to refuse orders and yeet off with no warning, should he suspect corruption or dangerous incompetence in his commander. The Jedi wouldn’t accept him in their midst, either: known among his Jedi acquaintances as ‘a tinkerer’ Force-wise (wording by Jedi master Greatstorm), his methods were far too experimental and violent for their liking. In fact, Greatstorm’s padawan seemed to be the only one appreciating what Din could do when he touched the Force. 

Simply put, Din’s presence made every remotely sane and responsible person nervous regardless of affiliation, and therefore it was with a sense of peace and quiet ( _finally)_ that Din slouched into a more comfortable position in the pilot seat. His broad shoulders relaxed a fraction, and his right hand fell on his inner thigh, in a position that would’ve been wildly inappropriate if the ship had been manned with a crew. Fortunately, Din traveled alone nine times out of ten. His jerk off sessions evolved and adjusted accordingly, like everything else on the ship. It was with a mixed sense of security, made possible by the reliable hull of the ship, and a diffuse sense of danger that made his toes curl and a shudder of anticipation to travel along his spine. 

His gloved palm skimmed the seam over his crotch, drawing the electrical sensation from the end of his tailbone to his sack. He wetted his lips and leaned back further as his fingers spread over his junk, touching the spots he knew would get him erect and hard in no time. After all, the brief time window he had at his disposal before the ship breached the planet’s atmosphere was down to seven minutes. He grabbed a greedy handful through the flight suit, squeezing out a groan from his throat at the same time. 

Din didn’t know what had set him off—he didn’t find or needed a clear reason to get himself off, most times. It was simply a natural, biological reaction to the urge to procreate, but as long as he didn’t want to marry and foster children, he had to settle for his own hand. His adoptive father had put it in perspective when Din was 13: _You will find yourself a wife soon enough, but in the meantime you’ll have to take care of your own needs. A Mandalorian does not take a lover when he risks revealing more of himself than he planned. Once you’re sure of your commitment to this woman, you’ll find out it was worth the wait._

The Jedi masters had more to add on the subject: attachment served as a death sentence if one allowed it to cloud ones’ mind. To maintain the connection to the Force, one couldn’t let emotions consume the consciousness; assert power over his will. A Jedi _sensed_ emotional states in others in order to help and assist them—a Jedi did not _feel_ those emotions arising in themselves, at least not without the proper introspection. 

Thus, Din was trusting his right hand to not lead him astray. And if he could finish before he crashed and burned on the surface a foreign planet that would be neat. 

_Five minutes and forty five seconds left,_ the blinking numbers on the holo dash told him. _Fine. Efficient jerk off it is._

Din unzipped the lower part of his flight suit, the zipper conveniently located to let him take a leak without having to strip down naked, and hauled his dick out in the open. He was warm and moist compared to the cool air in the cockpit, and squeezing himself through the thick leather in his glove was, in theory, somewhat close to being touched by another person, due to the temperature difference. His mind wandered down that path now and then—fantasizing about how it would feel if he was receiving pleasure from the Twi’lek he met in a bar on Coruscant, or treated with the tentacles of that hot Nautolan—or why not railed in the ass by Jedi master Loden Greatstorm. 

He careened towards ejaculation as he went through his most recent fantasies, bracketing his boots against the side-walls under the console to not slide off his chair. He used the leverage to thrust into his one-handed grip, but kriff, it wasn’t enough—he had to do what he always did eventually which was removing his glove. 

He buried his teeth in the fingertips of the glove and pulled it off, while casting a cautionary glance at the holo dash. _One minute, thirty six seconds. Kriff. Fuck._

He reached out through the Force to start the holographic system—there were plenty of suggestive images saved on public domains to keep the galaxy satisfied, and statistically speaking there was always new content to be found. Din didn’t prefer this outlet. It was a gamble, honestly: A live video feed of a couple of strangers fucking could either end in disaster or a mind-shattering orgasm. 

It must have been that moment of hesitation that aborted his command to the porn channel and returned the image of his current target to the holo screen. 

He froze as the file jumped out at him, the resolution a bit grainy and tinted but he knew what he was looking at, because he had pulled up the same file a dozen times over the course of his solitary journey in Outer Rim: 

_Cobb Vanth_

_Origin: Tatooinian human male_

_Code name: Valentine_

_Affiliation: Freedom Fighters, the Outer Rim sector 7 and 8_

_Rank: Lieutenant, 1st officer, Leader of subfraction The Krayts_

_Number of days missing: 18_

Din’s libido plummeted: death had a tendency to do that. 18 days since the last comlink report to Valentine’s home base; 18 days missing on a planet that looked like the ideal location for an illegal base of operation for the Hutts or other rivaling syndicates, Spice farms, work camps, anything would fit. The probability of finding Valentine alive was laughably small, but there was still that slim chance. Din knew he would want at least _someone_ to come for him, if he ever found himself in a similar position, despite the hopeless odds.

His gaze moved down purposefully—a morally grey course of action considering the precum wetting his fingers. Below the long row of identifying information collected by Valentine’s Galactic military handler hovered an visual image of the Freedom Fighter. The silver in his hair and the weathered marks in his skin suggested that the man was somewhere between the late thirties to mid-fifties. He originated from Tatooine which was a desert planet plagued with harsh sand storms, even harsher temperatures and clear skies: Din knew how human skin aged prematurely under those conditions. Vanth’s parents had been first generation settlers, but they were Hutt slaves by the time Vanth was born. There was a blank space between the age of 5 and 14 which suggested that he had been sold as a slave to an unknown owner—no one bothered to register the kids until they reached the age of maturity. According to the intel Vanth had been involved in the first counter strikes against the Hutt syndicate at the age of 15. He went on to requit escaped slaves and coordinated the resistance efforts for years before the Freedom Fighters picked him up and sent him to aid in other hot zones throughout the uncivilized Outer Rim. 

What wasn’t confirmed by the image and the intel was the man’s character. Din had yet to meet him to know for sure—the pleasant-looking facial features and squinting eyes peering at him from the tinted holographic was no guarantee that Valentine was a man of honor. His accomplishments told the tale of a man capable of ruthlessness, and there was a unique setting in his eyes that hinted at a darker personality. 

Din wouldn’t know until he established a connection. For now though, his dick was twitching with impatience and he had thirty seconds to spare before the ship breached the atmosphere of Avar-Kriss. He put his foot up against the dash and wetted his thumb with saliva, making sure to keep eye-contact with the holo image of Cobb Vanth while he did it. Concentrating his gaze on the small space inside the man’s mouth, that enticing sneak-peak of a tongue hidden behind his front teeth, Din did his best to imagine Vanth’s tongue sliding around his leaking tip, lifting his foreskin. He thumbed where he knew his most sensitive spot was, rubbing the coarse pad back and forth to enhance the experience that he was sliding over Vanth’s tongue and down the other man’s throat. That was it—he was so close. He mimicked the feel of Vanth’s throat muscles pressing around him from all sides and grabbed the dash for support as the ship’s entry in the atmosphere shook and rattled at the same time as he cummed all over the holographic. 

“Haar’chak…” He panted. Regained his balance in the chair. That was intense to an embarrassing degree. He honestly couldn’t recall when he had last cummed that hard. He grabbed a tissue and wiped off the small droplets on the transpirasteel. 

Then he checked out the planet beneath him. 

He was here to do a job. Thankfully he felt satisfactorily relaxed and more centered than he was ten minutes ago. The biological needs of his imperfect human body were effectively taken care of and he was alert like he’d arisen from a long and invigorating sleep: ready to take on whatever nasty surprises was lurking down there. 

Din dutifully closed his eyes and rested his head against the chair’s headrest. Picking through the Light field outside the hull of his ship was like walking through a crop field searching for a single grain among billions. It would be easier once he landed, but it didn’t hurt to start the search now. Freedom Fighter Vanth might not have hours or even minutes to spare: every effort Din put into locating him could mean the difference between life and death; between a flickering flame regaining its strength and the permanent extinction of what constituted the Tatooinian Cobb Vanth, whomever he was. 

_Cobb Vanth. Can you hear me?_ He reached out through the Force to communicate with the lifeform he had never met (but recently jerked off to, but lets keep that on the down-low). _Cobb Vanth, where can I find you?_

  
  



	2. Where there’s smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freedom Fighter Cobb hates that he ended up cold and wet, stuck in a bog and surrounded by impolite people. Unfortunately he’s not in the best mood when Din shows up to rescue him, and that’s why we have to wait for another chapter until we get smut. 
> 
> Yes, mr Trebek, I take Cobb Vanth bitching and moaning for 2.3k, please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just don’t have the mental capacity to understand the sw timeline so I made up my own shit regarding the beef between the Jedi and the Mandalorians.

_Cobb Vanth, can you hear me? Cobb Vanth, where can I find you?_

Freedom Fighter Cobb Vanth froze in place before he had fully comprehended the distant noise—no more and no less than a dying whistle or a pop in his eardrum. The decision to cease all movements didn’t change his pace much. He was already knee-deep in swamp water _and_ he was feeling the cold to the marrow of his bones. Except the marrow of the bones in his toes because he couldn’t feel those at all. One theory he had nursed for the past hour or so was that the toes had collectively decided to disjoint from his body and migrated through the water like little krills. _Mm, krills. Smoked krill with logradish cream._

_No, focus!_ His eyes turned skywards along with his thoughts. _Was that an aircraft? Fuckers have aircrafts now?_

 _A shipment!_ A jolt of stress urged him to pick his feet up and move. He had been stuck on this planet for over two weeks without supplies or the option to light a fire, living in the perimeter of the marauder’s compound. His own transportation had crashed in the mountain range behind him, and now he was reduced to stealing food from the scum he was there to spank. Slim pickings was an underestimation. His basic needs were pushing for him to smuggle himself aboard the ship so he could get the fuck off this planet. It was a tempting thought… and fatal. _The odds of them finding me is too great. Don’t make it easy for them…_

”Shit.”

He resumed his measured walking through the bog, joints aching from the cold and the locked position of his shoulders carrying what equipment and weapons he managed to salvage from the crash. He stopped and listened every couple of minutes, forcing himself to adhere to a few ground rules he had set for himself to avoid discovery. His field of vision was compromised horizontally and vertically by the fog—a fog that could be seen from space. To the beholder, the Avar-Kriss was a planet shrouded in swirling, brown-tinted clouds, as if the swamps on the surface were trying to escape the planet’s gravity. Add to that the rain that transitioned into snow storms by sudden extreme drops in temperature, and you had an inhospitable planet. Not inhabitable, no just shitty. Most settlers gave the planet a commissaring head-shake at the most before continuing on their explorative journey through the wild space. 

Cobb was among those rare individuals who had come to Avar-Kriss out of his free will. The recon mission had gone extremely well up to this point, except for the small detail of no food… no clean water… no ship… and no hope of rescue. His eyes had lost the pink shimmer shrouding space exploration decades ago—perhaps he’d never had it to begin with. He knew his fate was on him and him alone. Not even his own people wouldn’t be able to locate him and the Rep. Forces wouldn’t even shrug at his disappearance. He hadn’t even gone through the proper channels—there was no time to beg for permission. He followed a hunch, and he’d been right on the chit: He thought he found those bastards who massacred and robbed a community of mining settlers. Or, there was an identical group out there with a preference for hideous gas masks, murder and in-group corporal punishment. There had been at least seven of those attacks in Cobb’s sector, and the Freedom Fighters kept arriving too late: or just in time to witness the aftermath of the unusually brutal display of violence. Rumors were starting to spread from homestead to homestead: _Nothing protects you from the ghosts. You’re on your own._

But Cobb had the Ghosts under the heel of his boot now so, success, right? Worth losing a couple of limbs to gangrene. He deserved a medal for his initiative for sure, or some kind of senate-approved lap-dance, by the Chancellor herself if she was in the mood to celebrate. Not that he’d ever met her, but she seemed like a nice gal. A chill chancellor. _We are all the Republic,_ she used to say. He appreciated how she wore her hat on public appearances, and he’d always had a thing for dark brunettes. He just wished he hadn’t ventured on an unauthorized reconnaissance mission all by his lonesome, and lost his comlink and tracklinks. The statistical probability of Chancellor Lina Soh coming to his rescue was about as high as Chancellor Lina Soh sitting on his dick. 

”We are all the Republic. It does have a nice ring to it.” His wry grin cut through the fog like a razor, before vanishing without a trace. Quite an apt analogy for his life, actually. “Lina is the Republic. You are the Republic,” he pointed at a tree and then back to himself, ”I am the Republic. See how it works? We’re all family.” 

His sanity was taking a scenic detour and he might as well enjoy it while it lasted. Let the Ghosts hear him and shot his ass for his troubles, he was tired of this shit.

_” Speak for yourself.”_

Few things managed to scare Lieutenant Cobb Vanth—he had seen the worst of sentient and non-sentient kind. He had been on the front lines since he was fifteen, he _was_ the damn front line half the time. 

But a _tree?_ Speaking to him? From _inside his head?_

Cobb’s staring contest with the tree (which looked like it had passed away some time ago) turned into a frown when he gave a serious thought about it. 

_Those Ghosts fuckers are hiding in the trees._

He ran through the mud and the water, stopping to rest with his back pressed against a tree while raising his weapon. Yet another unsettling rumor about the Ghost was how they managed to get in and out without getting picked up by official radars. If true, the stealth these marauders possessed could very well be applied to a manhunt in the bog on this fine day. Cobb slowed his breathing, focused on his hearing, and prepared to wait like a predator on the prowl. 

The second time the voice spoke inside his head, he jerked so hard he smacked said head into the tree. _“Don’t approach the compound until you smell smoke.”_

“Don’t tell me what to do!” 

He was beginning to understand what was going on here. Though how in the eight hells they convinced a Jedi to leave their precious outpost to come and find him, he’ll never know. 

“Who are you?” 

No response. He refused to look around although that’s what his instincts were telling him to do. Another, forgotten part of him was whispering through decades to reach him with its message; seared connections pushing old memories to the surface of his mind. He hadn’t experienced this since— 

“I want them alive. Do you hear me? There might be more of them out there and I need the coordinates of their collaborators.” He raised his voice to one of command, pushing through his confusion emotions with his own, hard-earned authority. It was foolish, nonsensical: the Jedi were known to spare lives and to gather information. They didn’t need the local militia to tell them how to Jedi. 

Then: _boom._

Something must have hit the compound, because there were upset voices and calls to arms not far from where Cobb was hiding, which, uh, embarrassing. He must have fled right in the direction of the enemy. Cobb dropped all of his equipment except the blaster and ran towards the shouts. 

It was a great idea according to his instincts. 

It wasn’t the greatest idea to run in guns blazing, so he took cover behind a crate. Apparently he hadn’t been the only one with the same idea, only with no reservations. Peering around the corner, Cobb watched a disheveled Mandalorian enter the destroyed security gate in a daring manoeuvre Cobb liked to call ‘the Bantha surprise’: bold, and lacking tactical sense. The marauders came at him all at once, but he met their attacks with masterful sweeps of his fork-shaped weapon that kind of shoved them ten to twenty meters across the compound before hitting the ground. At last it was a two meter tall dowutin with overdimensioned chin horns on his gas mask (overcompensating much?) who had the first successful hit with his fist, sending the broad-shouldered but smaller Mandalorian stumbling back on his feet. 

The Mandalorian shook his head (as if silently berating himself) and kept walking backwards, retreating out of the gate. His assailants followed him, snickering at what they believed to be an easy fight with fourteen against one, but they didn’t catch what Cobb saw: how the Mandalorian bent two of his fingers in a subtle ‘come here’ gesture. 

Their retreat left Cobb with an unexpected opportunity. He saw what could be his escape: the marauder spacecraft, unattended for the moment. He heard the Jedi speak in his head once more.

_“I’ve got you covered. Go for it.”_

Cobb hesitated. The Mandalorian was out of sight, but by the sounds there was no question that the fight was ongoing. The Mando’s presence was a surprise in more than one sense of the word. The Mandalorian sector was a reluctant part of the Republic after centuries of war, and from what Cobb heard civil wars. The Mandalorians were neutral allies but that wasn’t exactly how Cobb or anyone else would describe them. _Neutral_ and _allies_ might be two words not found in their native tongue. Cobb cursed. If a Mandalorian was here the Jedi would have their hands full, and it made sense for the Jedi to order Cobb’s retreat. 

He didn’t want to fall back, though. His mission would fade into the background of the galactic pissing contest that would ensue, as it always had been: justice for the innocent settler families that were slaughtered in their homes meant nothing to the general public in the Inner Rim, or their politicians, not when the distance watered down the empathy and the HoloNews told the story of the heroic Jedi win over a Mandalorian, truce or no truce. 

Cobb knew how it was like to be forgotten. He shared some commonalities with the Mandalorian, barely acknowledged but still… it made it hard to turn his back. 

Cobb sighed. “Hold that thought. He might need some helping out.” 

He grunted at the effort to stand up again, and ew—his pants were soaked and sticking to his legs. ‘ _My Tatooinian ass will never get used to that.’_ He spoke inside his head without meaning to. ‘ _Running will be a literal pain in the butt_.’

_“How about less talking and more of that helping out?”_

The voice sounded cocky and a bit stressed. Or out of breath.

“I don’t see you helping. Tell the Mando to stop killing all my leads.” Cobb shot a non-lethal weequay marauder in the back before it could aim another shot at the Mando (whose armor deflected the hits like nothing Cobb ever seen before). He shifted position and shot some kind of cloaked creature wearing a long snoot-shaped mask before it could club him over the head. 

“ _Is three enough for you?”_

The Mando did a graceful maneuver that ended up with three marauders incapacitated on the ground, entangled in a grappling line. The Mando disconnected the line from his vambrace and gave Cobb a shoulder-shrug that Cobb would interpret as childishly proud, under different less life-threatening circumstances. 

Cobb startled. Stared. “Uh…” _‘That was kind of hot.’_

He did _not_ mean to say that out loud. In his head. Out loud in his head. And he wasn’t turned on by violence, even though the Mando had just taken out a group that would’ve taken more than one military unit to apprehend. Quite the opposite—he was turned on by peace and all that crap. _“This is my adrenaline talking, I hope you know that.”_

The Mandalorian walked past him close enough for his voice to reach Cobb: “Sure. I’ll go look for extra fuel.” 

It was the same male (arrogant) voice as the Jedi one that had been carrying along a conversation with Cobb for the length of his rescue. 

Cobb looked at the band of Ghosts, now either tied up or dead on the ground. No, some were not dead, but held down by some invisible weight. _The Force, he’s doing this— “you’re doing this. You.”_ He swiveled around to watch the Mandalorian swagger in his full armor towards the hangar. 

“How? You’re a Mandalorian. _You’re a Jedi?_ A majedi? No, you’re either a Mandalorian or a Jedi! Which one is it?”

The Mando’s chuckle was a resonant, rippling sensation along Cobb’s spine, and he felt it to the roots of his hair. He shuddered. “Stop doing that.”

The Mando turned around. “Doing what?” 

Cobb pointed to his temple. “You know! The mind trick! I won’t have it!”

“I’m not tricking you. I’m rescuing you.” 

“You’re not allowed inside my head.” Cobb felt his hackles rise. “I’ll tell you when and if you’re allowed inside my head!”

“I wouldn’t have found you otherwise.” 

“I didn’t tell you to find me!”

A statement which didn’t make any sense at all, but the scowl persisted in the corner of Cobb’s lips. 

The Mando was quiet for a long moment. Pondering what kind of threat Cobb would possibly make, or he was micro-napping. Hard to tell with that helmet covering his face. Asshole.

“Fine.”

Cobb put his hands on his hips, while pretending he wasn’t standing in a market of neatly laid up marauders ready for pick up. “Thank you. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” 

The Mando looked down at the fuel barrels. “You will help me carry these.”


	3. ...There’s fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mandalorian spoke languidly in comparison to Cobb’s own racing thoughts. “You’ll have to move faster than that. We don’t have much time.”  
> Cobb wanted to ask for what, but his throat was thickening. He swallowed and looked down to where the waistband of the man’s underwear was peeking out of the open flight suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops again? 😳
> 
> This is where we collectively gather around and ask what the hell is wrong with me. 
> 
> It is pretty dark, this chapter, but rest assured that it’s all a misunderstanding and the chapter ends on a positive note. I left trigger warnings in the end note.

The fog was like a wall rising from the planet’s surface to the atmosphere. Din knew as he directed his visor to the northeast that there was a jagged mountain range treasoursoulsy hidden behind the dirty curtain of smoke, and he thanked the ship’s navigation systems for bringing him down safely. Lieutenant Vanth hadn’t been so lucky. Force knew the state of the scrap heaps operated by the Freedom Fighters. The thing had probably been held together by the substance found in adhesive grenades before the mountain wall mercy-killed it. 

The pilot looked worse for wear, too. Dead on his feet, drenched in the wetness and the stank from the surrounding swamp. Once the mud dried on his clothes it was drenched in dirty water again—now repeat that for eighteen days and you had the walking and talking mud statue currently occupied with moving fuel barrels across the compound. There were innocently white snowflakes glistening in Vanth’s hair and melting on his shoulders. The approaching snowfall put an additional time pressure on their departure. Din did not like what the lieutenant had insinuated about there being other groups out there in liaison with the marauders on the ground. 

Din didn’t like the hypothermic complexion of the lieutenant, either. They had a long trek ahead of them to reach the one good spot on this cursed planet to land a ship. He didn’t like the odds of Vanth making it by foot, especially not when Din would have his hands full with a live captive and his mind focused on stabilizing the radioactive fuel.

“Go inside the hangar when you’re done.” He motioned for the by now shivering and blue-lipped lieutenant to step inside the hangar as soon as he had finished securing the loaded fuel barrels to their make-shift barrow (it was more like a stretcher. Din hoped it floated). 

The Freedom Fighter huffed, like he’d received an insult. Din shook his head. He didn’t know what Vanth’s deal was, but it wasn’t the first time he received flak from a local talent and it wouldn’t be the last. 

Even though it had started as a petty punishment, it was a good decision to let Vanth handle the barrels. The man huffed and puffed out of exertion, swore like Din never heard of (and he’d spent time with Mon Calamari dock workers) and gave Din the stink eye for not helping. The physical activity kept his body temperature up, but now it was doing the opposite along with the sweat cooling on his skin. Well, it was fun while it lasted. Din hid his mirth behind the visor and turned back to the captives. He catalogued their identity markers and saved it on the log to be transferred to the official channels, then knelt down beside the smallest member of the gang. 

It wasn’t that she’d been much of a lightweight when fighting him. Her slight weight simply meant that she was the ideal pick of the bunch to transport on the Razor crest. 

He left the blaster holstered and leaned over to study the woman’s face, let her blink up at him and make her own conclusions about her fate. “What’s the motivation,” he asked, “for murdering innocent people? Children?” 

He had felt what Cobb Vanth had felt as his thoughts had drifted back to the marauders’ crimes; a brief but near overpowering hatred and underneath, an immense grief. And underneath that: a bottomless pit of guilt. 

He let the Force retreat from her mouth, allowing her to talk. 

She snarled, “We’re the Nihil. That’s what we do.” She wasn’t snarling at all. She was smiling. 

A chill ran down Din’s spine. A premonition, he suspected. He hadn’t heard of the Nihil, and he hadn’t been aware of the attacks on the settler homesteads either. As was true for the Republic Forces he worked for and the rest of the galaxy. _Local news_ , he thought Vanth would call it. Settlers perished in the Other rim’s distant sectors all the time. Groups like these made a row and disappeared, all the time, yet it was something with the complete lack of compassion in the marauder’s eyes that twisted Din’s gut. 

“Do you have an official manifesto available, or should I take your word for it?”

Vanth had approached while they talked. Din knew he was standing close-by due to the unbridled amounts of dark emotions emanating from him. 

Din put two of his fingers against the woman’s forehead: “You will want to talk when you face the official authorities. You’ll have an urgent need to confess to your crimes, and to tell everything you know about the Nihil. Not to _him,_ ” he leaned back and motioned at the Freedom Fighter, “You will ask for a Republic officer of rank, and ask for your interview to be recorded.” 

He heard Vanth’s aggravated noise behind his back, and ignored him. “You’ll lay here and rest for a while, and then you’ll come with me without a fuss. If you run, you will be captured and I’ll make you regret it dearly. Do you understand?” 

The vile smile on the woman’s face was gone. She nodded obediently and closed her eyes with a sigh of content (which only served to aggravate Vanth more). Din made sure to avoid looking in Vanth’s direction as he used the Light field around the woman’s body to lift her in mid-air and place her on top of the fuel barrels like a neat parcel. 

“Jedi,” Vanth muttered and aimed a kick too close to the fuel barrels for comfort. 

Din sighed inwards and turned to find the other man glaring daggers from the top of his wild, outgrown beard. 

Vanth was livid, with or without the beard. “I have been towing these damn barrels, breaking my back and losing daylight—when you could’ve conjured your mighty Jedi powers to make them float? What the hell?” 

Din shrugged. “You were being ungrateful.”

“Fuck you!” Vanth spat. He was shaking from the combination of anger and his body failing to sustain any more heat. The snowfall had increased during the short exchange. Soon the path to the ship would be untraversable, and the lieutenant would be an ice popsicle in the snow.

 _Bic ni skana’din!_ Din walked ahead towards the hangar, suppressing the urge to drag the lieutenant there by his ragged shirt collar, “Follow me, you ungrateful ge'h tuun _,_ or you’re not flying out of here.” 

  
  


_Ge’hutuun?? You’re the ge’hutuun!_

Cobb was seething. He wanted to… he could, theoretically, open the lids on the fuel barrels, pour the content all over the incapacitated murderers here before his feet, step back and light a match. He could do that right now, and these scums wouldn’t be able to do jack shit to save themselves. If that didn’t make them feel compassion for their victims… they deserved to burn. For a moment he was back there in the settlement, watching his step so as to not— 

_No. Don’t look down._ He drew a shuddering breath, and imagined how uncomfortable warm he’d feel when he had made it out of here: how he would sit back with his stomach full and let his body rest. 

The Mandalorian, Din Djarin, was asking for a fucking lot for someone who claimed to have come to his rescue. But Cobb did not care for the trek—by _foot—_ to wherever the hell the Mandalorian had touched down with his spacecraft. Cobb wasn’t in the mountains anymore, but he was pretty sure that what laid ahead of them was endless untraversable terrain and if not swamps, then more amounts of that freezing water he wasn’t fond of. It didn’t help that they were standing on a planet which natural resources and living lifeforms were largely unknown. No. This was where Cobb Vanth drew the damn line. “Good plan you have! We don’t know what kind of wildlife is out there! I bet they’re all nocturnal.”

He found himself standing outside the hangar, waiting in vain for the Mandalorian to answer. Instead he was met with his own echo. 

And he was freezing. 

He uttered a huttese curse and ventured inside. 

The outline of the Mandalorian was barely visible in the hangar, not that the pale daylight outside did much better. The man turned on a light on his discarded vambrace, and the question on Cobb’s tongue trailed off: the Mandalorian was undressing. He seemed desensitized to the whole ordeal, removing his armor with calm and methodical efficiency, before starting on the zipper of his dark flight suit. 

Cobb stood watching as the ungloved, human hand worked the line of the zipper all the way down, revealing more of a broad, muscular torso in a simple tank.

Cobb blamed shock for not noticing at first that the Mando wasn’t wearing the silver-gleaming helmet. Under the V-shaped sides and slim visor that had given Cobb the expression of watching a droid, was the square face of a tan, dark-haired man with beard growth in patches along his cheeks and a gleam of post-battle sweat on his forehead and lip, humanizing him further. 

The Mando looked Cobb over with an unsatisfied furrow pressing down his brow, like he’d forgotten what Cobb looked like when inviting him in here and regretted his choice of mid-mission entertainment. He motioned Cobb to come closer with the same two finger-gesture he had used on the marauders and Cobb’s breathing hitched loudly. 

The Mandalorian spoke languidly in comparison to Cobb’s own racing thoughts. “You’ll have to move faster than that. We don’t have much time.”

Cobb wanted to ask _for what,_ but his throat was thickening. He swallowed and looked down to where the waistband of the man’s underwear was peeking out of the open flight suit. He thought back to similar situations in the past, mostly between him and friends who he knew and trusted not to make things awkward afterwards. Technically there was a difference between helping each other relieve some stress and blowing a stranger in a hangar as payment for saving his life, but Cobb would be better off forgetting about that difference right now. _Technically_ he could do what the Mandalorian was asking, if that was what stood between him and a ticket out of here. 

He took a couple of steps forward, while the Mando continued undressing with the same critical frown and gaze attached to Cobb’s clothes with clear disgust. “Oh. Right.” Cobb started on the zipper on his jacket. His fingers were trembling, but he managed to keep his voice steady. “I don’t get why _I_ have to undress for this.”

He folded his jacket once, wrinkled his nose at the smell of swamp that he apparently hadn’t habituated to fully and put it on the ground. It wasn’t much but it was his only protection against the elements, dammit. He rubbed his arms in an effort to hold in as much internal heat as possible, not much good it would do. He gingerly put one knee on the ground, and then cursed himself out for not kneeling down on the damn jacket. 

The Mando snorted, a soft exhale through his nose like Cobb had just told him a joke. “The faster we do this the faster it’s over—” He raised his eyebrows when he spotted Cobb on the floor and jutted his chin. “I won’t remove my suit before you take those off.”

“Take what off?”

“You shirt. Your pants. All of it.”

 _All right, has been going on long enough!_ “Listen. I won’t take off my pants. That’s a line I’m not interested in crossing!” 

Cobb stood with his hand resting on his belt, tapping a finger against the latch to beat of his own increasing heart rate. Then he hooked his fingers under his shirt and pulled it off, hoping to stall. He wondered what the Mando would do if he ran. Stun him? Kill him?

“Are you—?” The other man shook his head, sighed and behaved like _he_ was the one making concessions here. “ _Kriff,_ that’s cold.” He stepped out of the flight suit as fast as he could and handed it over for Cobb to take. “Here. Take it. Now give me your clothes before I freeze my balls off.”

His balls _were_ out, Cobb discovered. Along with a still soft dick that shied away from the cold air but still elicited the word _well-endowed_ in Cobb’s head. The sight was so mind-shattering ( _there’s a man with his junk hanging out in this hangar! What do I do?_ ) that he lost track of his own agenda: he didn’t protest when the flight suit was pressed into his hands.

“Put it on. _Gedet’ye._ ” ( _Please.)_

Cobb’s focus zoomed in on one single focal point when he touched the item. He felt the heat from the other man rise from its fabric and transfer to his hands like a balm. It was a flight suit of the highest quality, in a material that he couldn’t place but it felt both sturdy and lightweight—and like heaven. 

It would be pure bliss to feel it all over, especially in comparison to his own wet and ruined clothes. He thought he had forgotten how it felt to be warm and dry: 18 days on a swamp planet was more than enough to remember his life like a distant dream. 

He held the suit up. “You want me to put this on? Your suit? And your _underwear?”_ This time, his voice _was_ shaking, with emotions he didn’t want to examine further. _I don’t have to have your cock in my mouth?_

The Mando looked back at him with a blank face, but Cobb could read the _duh_ expression in his eyes. There was also a very prominent, judgemental _duh_ evident in his posture and the press of hands covering his dick. He didn’t do much else, though. He was just standing there in his socks and with something wild and desperate twitching in his cheek the longer the moment dragged. He was not acting like any Mandalorian Cobb had ever heard of. 

So Cobb decided to test a theory. 

He took his sweet time dressing. 

The other man shifted foot impatiently. “You’re so slow. I can’t believe you survived this long.”

“ _Ah.”_ Cobb brushed a hand down the flight suit and smiled at the sensation of heat already starting. His limbs were singing with joy. He didn’t even mind the musky scent cloud of another male rising to his nostrils. He hadn’t been forced to _do_ something to get that smell in his nose. ”You know, I was feeling iffy about giving you a blowjob. Now I think I'd give you one with no complaint.”

There was an abrupt cease of movement in front of him. Cobb looked up to see the Mando with Cobb’s wet pants halfway up his hairy thighs. “You _what?_ ”

_I shouldn’t have said that._

“Hey. It’s just a joke.” Cobb showed his palms. To be shot because he ran his mouth instead of fighting for his life—the irony. “I don’t even swing that way, no shame on those who do.” 

“Swing what way?”

“You know. Males. Males with dicks. I was prepared to do my part but that’s it. Offer expired.” He chuckled with giddy relief.

The other man looked like a detonator had just gone off in his head. He looked at Cobb standing there practically grinning in his flight suit. “The offer—? But I wasn’t… I wasn’t gonna—“

“I know that _now._ Relax.” Cobb walked back outside before the honest face on the other man got unbearable. The suit went up his crouch a bit thanks to the slight height difference but not even chafed balls could ruin his mood now. He was alive and the snow was pretty. “I hope you remember where you parked.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Cobb thinks Din is demanding a blow job from him as payment. Din is NOT, btw. 
> 
> And there’s brief mentions in Cobb’s mind about people burning, and finding a massacred settlement.


End file.
